Tamper-evident verification of an article of manufacture

Abstract

An instance of a physical product includes a verification code and a unique identifier disposed thereupon by which authenticity or condition of the instance may be determined. The combination may be uniquely associated with the instance and stored, by the issuer or manufacturer for each authentic instance, locally or within a decentralized computing system having an immutable data store. The verification code may be concealed by a tamper-evident component such that access of the verification code is evident upon visual inspection. Verification may require revealing of the verification code with tamper-evidence and submission of a request including the verification code and the unique identifier (or representation thereof) to receive a verification result. Each request to verify an instance may be recorded and returned with a next request for verification of the same instance of the product to indicate whether another entity has already performed a verification.

What is claimed is: 
     
       1. An apparatus comprising:
 a physical card having a surface area of a first size corresponding to a face of the card, the physical card comprising:
 a first portion comprising a first unique identifier, 
 a second portion comprising a code, and 
 a third portion comprising private access information; 
 
 a tamper-evident mask affixed to the face of the card and concealing the code; and 
 a tamper-evident sticker affixed to the face of the card, the tamper-evident sticker comprising:
 a first portion concealing the third portion of the card, 
 a second portion including public access information and a second unique identifier, and 
 at least one tamper-evident layer, 
 
 wherein a correspondence of values of the unique identifiers indicates a correspondence between the private access information and the public access information. 
 
     
     
       2. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein:
 the code is operable to verify an authenticity of an issued pairing of the physical card with the tamper-evident sticker. 
 
     
     
       3. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein:
 the code is an encryption key and the private access information is ciphertext, the encryption key being operable to obtain plaintext private access information, and 
 the tamper-evident sticker is affixed to the face of the card to conceal the private access information prior to a disposing of the encryption key on the card. 
 
     
     
       4. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein:
 the code is an encryption key and the private access information is ciphertext, the encryption key being operable to obtain plaintext private access information, and 
 the tamper-evident mask is affixed to the face of the card to conceal the encryption key prior to a disposing of the private access information on the card. 
 
     
     
       5. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein:
 a correspondence of values of the unique identifiers is a matching of a same value across each of the unique identifiers. 
 
     
     
       6. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein:
 the tamper-evident mask includes a scratch-off surface, abrasion of the scratch-off surface revealing a corresponding portion of the concealed code. 
 
     
     
       7. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein:
 the tamper-evident mask includes a tamper-evident adhesive, lifting of a portion of the tamper-evident mask having the tamper-evident adhesive from the face of the card revealing a first pattern within the portion of the mask and a second, corresponding pattern on the face of the face. 
 
     
     
       8. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein:
 the physical card comprises at least one metal layer and at least some portion of the metal layer is exposed on the face of the card within the second portion, 
 the code is disposed on the face of the card within the second portion and the at least some portion of the metal layer exposed on the face of the card includes the code, and 
 the tamper-evident mask is affixed to the face of the card to conceal the code. 
 
     
     
       9. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein:
 the third portion of the card comprising the private access information includes a machine-readable optical code, the machine readable optical code encoding a ciphertext corresponding to the private access information, and 
 the second portion of the card comprising the code includes an encryption key, the encryption key being operable to obtain a plaintext of the private access information based on the ciphertext. 
 
     
     
       10. The apparatus of  claim 9 , wherein:
 the third portion of the card comprising the private access information does not include a plaintext of the private access information. 
 
     
     
       11. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein:
 the third portion comprising the private access information includes a depiction of ciphertext of the private access information, the ciphertext generated based on plaintext of the private access information and an encryption key, 
 the private access information does not include a depiction of the plaintext of the private access information, and 
 the code includes the encryption key, the encryption key operable to obtain the plaintext of the private access information based on the ciphertext. 
 
     
     
       12. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein:
 the private access information is ciphertext of an alpha-numeric data string, and 
 the code is an encryption key, the encryption key being operable to obtain the alpha-numeric data string based on the ciphertext. 
 
     
     
       13. The apparatus of  claim 12 , wherein:
 the tamper-evident mask comprises means for indicating whether a portion of the surface area of the face of the card to which the tamper-evident mask is affixed is revealed, and 
 the at least one tamper-evident layer comprises means for indicating whether a portion of the surface area of the face of the card to which the tamper-evident sticker is affixed is revealed.